February 2024
Update from CEO Jo Farrar
I wanted to update you on the plans and priorities for our Better Together partnership this year.
Since embarking on our partnership journey in 2020, we’ve taken several important steps including:
- Establishing one single leadership team for HRCH and Kingston Hospital
- Agreeing joint strategic objectives across our organisations to improve care
- Submitting a strategic case for merger to NHS England.
Alongside these organisation-wide steps, it’s been great to see teams come together to join up services for the benefit of local people. Whether that’s the work of our Virtual Ward team or our Volunteering team, we’ve seen the positive difference collaboration can make.
Our plans for 2024
This year, we will be going further with our collaboration. Below is an overview of our priorities:
Implementing our clinical strategy
We will finalise and start to implement our joint long-term clinical strategy. Following extensive engagement with staff and clinical teams last year, we have developed 14 clinical priorities for our strategy.
These are being fine-tuned in response to the feedback we’re hearing from staff, patients, and the public and we plan to launch our joint strategy in March.
The strategy seeks to put patients and their families at the heart of all our work in everything that we do in the community and in our acute services.
Transferring Hounslow community services
This week, we received confirmation that the North West London Integrated Care Board has now published a procurement process to hear from providers who would like to be considered to run the Hounslow community services which currently sit within HRCH. It is anticipated that the transfer of services will take place on 1 July 2024.
We will work closely with the new provider to ensure we do what is right for the communities involved, that the transition is smooth and safe, and that staff are looked after. We know this process has been an uncertain and difficult time for many staff, and we are committed to providing as much support to this group as possible over the coming months.
Building our full case for merger
Alongside the transfer of Hounslow services, our work continues to build the case for a formal merger of our organisations. Before Christmas, NHS England informed us that we can now proceed with the development of our full business case and post-transaction integration plan.
The suggested target date for merging our services is October 2024. This allows us some time to make sure we get things right. We will also be using this time to link in with our colleagues in Your Healthcare, considering how we can work more closely together to provide greater resilience to our services as we move forward with our partnership.
Why do we want to merge?
The current health and care system is unstainable and we believe a merger would benefit patients and make us a stronger team, with expertise across community and acute services.
We want to improve the experience of patients by creating properly integrated pathways, that put the patient outcomes first.
By bringing our services and resources together, we will be able to focus on providing more proactive preventative healthcare, to help keep people well in their homes for longer.
We know from other healthcare services elsewhere, that working together would support people to stay well and receive services in the most appropriate setting.
For staff, being part of a single organisation would make it easier to gain experience in different areas and increase opportunities for professional development and career progression.
We will be talking a lot more about this work over the coming weeks and months, so please look out for other opportunities to get involved and have your say. As we progress with our plans, we will keep you informed and involved.
One channel for communication will be this monthly Better Together newsletter.
Talking of news and updates, please see below some other news from across our partnership, including:
- A spotlight on some of our Quality Improvement work, including the inspiring projects of two of our recent ‘yellow belt’ graduates and the progress of our deconditioning quality priority
- The launch of our shared People Pledge for all colleagues
Thank you,
Jo
Jo Farrar
Chief Executive
Making strides in quality improvement
Training our workforce
Over the last year we have focused on developing a culture of improvement. One way we’ve done this is through our core training programmes called White Belt and Yellow Belt, designed to support staff to embed quality improvement into their daily work.
These programmes now run for colleagues at HRCH and Kingston. As of December 2023, a total of 328 staff have completed the more advanced Yellow Belt programme, which involves leading an improvement project.
Congratulations to Mamibeth Mendy from the Royal Eye Unit (pictured right top with Chief Nurse Nic Kane) and Maria Idrees from GP Support Services at HRCH (pictured right below) who were two of our recent graduates.
Mamibeth created a ‘conveyor belt’ approach in the Royal Eye Unit to reduce the average waiting time of patients. Her work resulted in positive patient feedback and clinics finishing before 5pm, so that staff can leave on time.
Maria’s project sought to increase patient access to GP appointments and consultations online, to reduce the number of unnecessary phone calls and waiting times of patients. Her work resulted in higher numbers of online consultations and positive patient feedback about the system.
Spotlight on our deconditioning quality priority
Our work so far has involved building awareness of the effects of deconditioning. A wide range of delegates have joined workshops to discuss what deconditioning means to them, to hear from patients, and to create a shared aim.
The growing number of delegates have described this priority as a ‘deconditioning revolution’. We’ve also carried out surveys to measure staff awareness about deconditioning, and the insight will shape our interventions.
Looking ahead, we will be focusing on getting accurate functional information in both hospital and community settings, and ensuring there is the equipment and space needed on wards and in people’s homes to stimulate mental and physical activity.
We will also work to increase understanding among staff, patients and our local communities, and increase the number of patients in inpatient settings being out of bed, dressed and moving.
Launching our People Pledge
The Pledge was created following engagement with colleagues across our organisations, where we learned what matters most to our people.
We have an ongoing communication and engagement plan to support the continued roll out of the Pledge. And as well as promoting it internally to staff, we will start to use it externally to help attract prospective employees and drive recruitment.